HeroQuest SRD and OGL, genre packs

[David Scott]

5 hours ago, Aprewett said:

They are an abiluty like any other and the gm still sets a difficulty level to roll against?

yes.

In a SciFi game I'm playing in, my character Alan Vishnu - Lord of light has the flaw of Boring 3M. In the middle of my battle plan speech, the narrator asks me to roll my Boring. I roll 19 a failure bumped to a success, no one  listens to me. The other characters resist with an appropriate skill, one has Space Cowboy at 5M. 3M vs 5M masteries cancel, I roll a 1 vs his 18 (If you have an Alexa it can do dice rolls without you having to move). I succeed with a critical and he fails, I get a Major victory and he falls asleep. In a later event I rescue the daughter of the Emperor of the Evil Empire and try to woo her with the natural charm that I have as a god, however... Boring kicks in. She is interested in Alan, and I'm putting her off with boring. The narrator give me a -6 bonus to my Boring as I rescued her , but adds a +6 plot modifier to her as I am the sworn enemy of her father. I roll 7, a success, but not bumped as my Boring is 1M -6 = 15. Galaxina (the narrator) rolls a 9 against a Moderate Difficulty level of 16. a success. I have the low roll so have a marginal victory (I'm boring her), so I spend a Hero Point to bump down my success to a failure to give a minor success and Galaxina falls in love with Alan Vishnu. Now the courting can begin (It ends well after several sessions and a lot of hero points).

Another way that my flaw has been used is as a negative augment to my abilities. We use auto augments so my Boring is often -4 (1M/5 = 4) to my Lord of light 5M.

Edited May 28, 2019 by David Scott
added opposed rolls

[soltakss]

2 hours ago, Aprewett said:

I hope there is some examples of Flaws. I dont think I am doing them right. I got the impression that they are the Resistance or Difficulty rating against witch the player is rolling a suitable ability.

Is that correct?

Or

They are an abiluty like any other and the gm still sets a difficulty level to roll against? 

There was a thread on RPG.NET where someone was trying to convert his PCs from another system to HeroQuest. After some toing and froing, he came up with a nice set of stats. One of the things he had was Flaws as Breakouts, with Flaw: in front of them. Nice and easy, no drama, recognised that it was a Flaw and could be used any way the GM or Player want.

I thought it was a nice way of doing it.

So, someone might have Detective 10M (Observant +1, Relentless +2, Flaw:Alcoholic +3). In this case the Flaw:Alcoholic would be a penalty to the Detective and would reduce the skill. It might even be applied to other areas, if it is important to the game. They could be a separate ability, in which case you might have Detective 10M (Observant +1, Relentless +2), Alcoholic 20 (Abusive +2, Reformed +1), with the amount in the Keyword determining how much of a Flaw it is and the Breakouts describing what the main effects are.

[Aprewett]

David, your post reads like you are rolling against the difficulty number. I thought the gm rolls against the difficulty and the 2 outcomes cross-referenced?

But if that is the case what was the success level outcome of the gm's roll?

[David Scott]

The first example is actually an Auto success roll (HQ2 page 21), the narrator is doing a pretend opposed roll. I never fail my boring except on a fumble (I've removed the difficulty). My character is alway boring. The second is an opposed roll vs space cowboy. The third, I've added in the opposed roll of Galaxina resisting Alan's godly love moves as you were correct in suggesting is missing.

Edited May 28, 2019 by David Scott

[jajagappa]

When I invoke a character's Flaw, I have them determine what ability they will oppose it with, and then have the player roll for each. Effectively the Flaw is the difficulty level they must overcome.

[Lemurion]

I am new to HeroQuest, but I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what happens with the genre packs. It's such a good system for rules-light adventure that it deserves more of an audience and I think genre packs can help a lot.

As someone with a background in systems like AD&D 1e, I found HQ2 to be refreshing in how it associated obstacles with narrative importance rather than simulated difficulty. When I put on my writer's hat more than my GM's hat it makes a lot of sense, especially when dealing with emergent storytelling.

[JonL]

10 hours ago, Lemurion said:

I am new to HeroQuest, but I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what happens with the genre packs. It's such a good system for rules-light adventure that it deserves more of an audience and I think genre packs can help a lot.

As someone with a background in systems like AD&D 1e, I found HQ2 to be refreshing in how it associated obstacles with narrative importance rather than simulated difficulty. When I put on my writer's hat more than my GM's hat it makes a lot of sense, especially when dealing with emergent storytelling.

Welcome to the party.

[Lemurion]

 

2 hours ago, JonL said:

Welcome to the party.

Thanks

[frodolives]

I'm late to the party with this news! One thought I've had for a while is that the HQ rules would be perfect for a Silmarillion-esque game. Sweeping, epic events taking place in a single session, pyrrhic victories, rising action, climactic scenes & resolutions, group extended contests used to settle massive battles, etc.

[The God Learner]

6 hours ago, frodolives said:

perfect for a Silmarillion-esque game. Sweeping, epic events taking place in a single session, pyrrhic victories, rising action, climactic scenes & resolutions, group extended contests used to settle massive battles, etc.

Sounds like a great idea. HQ seems to lend itself well to situations where conventional systems would be extremely tedious and probably lead to the wrong outcome anyway. For something like Silmarillion you could perhaps combine HQ with Microscope to make the playable story span ages and drill down to particular parts of interest. 

I have thought about presenting the HQ style in a somewhat less elevated manner: that one session equals about one comic book, and that fights should be comparable (in particular, often resolved in just a panel or two rather than through a long loving tactical process). In other words, the tempo is usually intended to be brisk. I'm still struggling a bit with how to run the games in an interesting narrative and player-involving manner though. (I am normally more of a simulationist.)

 

[Richard S.]

On 6/19/2019 at 12:55 PM, The God Learner said:

I have thought about presenting the HQ style in a somewhat less elevated manner: that one session equals about one comic book, and that fights should be comparable (in particular, often resolved in just a panel or two rather than through a long loving tactical process). In other words, the tempo is usually intended to be brisk.

Of course, you can also have comics where the whole length of it is just a combat.

Edited June 21, 2019 by Richard S.

[rabindranath72]

On 6/19/2019 at 12:31 PM, frodolives said:

I'm late to the party with this news! One thought I've had for a while is that the HQ rules would be perfect for a Silmarillion-esque game. Sweeping, epic events taking place in a single session, pyrrhic victories, rising action, climactic scenes & resolutions, group extended contests used to settle massive battles, etc.

Just yesterday I started re-reading the Silmarillion, with the idea of creating an HQ campaign. I have The One Ring, but the "tone" of the game isn't appropriate, and the rules themselves wouldn't support the theme. So the plan is to "HQ-ify" The One Ring, and take Cultures, Callings, Traits and Virtues, and transform them into Abilities. The Shadow-weakness would be the first Flaw of a character. The High-elves and Rangers would be the two main cultures.

Edited June 21, 2019 by rabindranath72

[The God Learner]

3 hours ago, Richard S. said:

Of course, you can also have comics where the whole length of it is just a combat.

Perhaps that's where the extended contests or chained contests come in? Though I don't think the strength of HQ is hyperextended combat sequences, like lasting an entire session, so maybe the GM should just fast-forward those or break them down to smaller units. Or just admit that the comic book metaphor is not a perfect one but merely guidance.

(I personally don't really enjoy spending hours on a big fight anymore; I think D&D 3.5 weaned me off of that.)

 

[JonL]

2 hours ago, rabindranath72 said:

Just yesterday I started re-reading the Silmarillion, with the idea of creating an HQ campaign. I have The One Ring, but the "tone" of the game isn't appropriate, and the rules themselves wouldn't support the theme. So the plan is to "HQ-ify" The One Ring, and take Cultures, Callings, Traits and Virtues, and transform them into Abilities. The Shadow-weakness would be the first Flaw of a character. The High-elves and Rangers would be the two main cultures.

Shadow weakness? Nay! The twin tragedies of the Eldar are Hubris and Fate. If I ran a Beleriand HQ game, any Firstborn characters would chose one of those two as their high-flaw, and tie the other as they wish. Any who swore the Oath or otherwise fall under the Doom of Mandos would get a +M to those flaws when it rears its head.

[JonL]

25 minutes ago, The God Learner said:

 

(I personally don't really enjoy spending hours on a big fight anymore; I think D&D 3.5 weaned me off of that.)

When I run con games, I usually start off with a quick "wandering monster"  warm-up encounter to get newcomers used to HQ's mechanics. I recall fondly an astonished player remarking, upon the party dispatching overcoming a Scorpion Men ambush, "Last week, in my Pathfinder game we ran into some goblins and the fight took two hours."

I'll still enjoy a crunchy grind every now and then, and had great fun doing the Pathfinder 2 playtest last year, but my overall preference these days runs much more towards lighter fare.

[BruceMri]

On 6/21/2019 at 10:12 AM, JonL said:

Shadow weakness? Nay! The twin tragedies of the Eldar are Hubris and Fate. 

I'm hearing this in the voice of the woman at Bob's Country Bunker in The Blues Brothers. "We got both kinds - we got hubris, an' fate!"

[rabindranath72]

On ‎6‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 6:12 PM, JonL said:

Shadow weakness? Nay! The twin tragedies of the Eldar are Hubris and Fate. If I ran a Beleriand HQ game, any Firstborn characters would chose one of those two as their high-flaw, and tie the other as they wish. Any who swore the Oath or otherwise fall under the Doom of Mandos would get a +M to those flaws when it rears its head.

That's a good point, but I reckon that Hubris is just a manifestation of the Lure of Power (one of the Shadow-weaknesses, to use a TOR term).

As Tolkien talks about the Fall of Elves in his letter to Milton Waldman, "Their Fall is into possessiveness and (to a lesser degree) into perversion of their art to power". I'd say therefore that both Lure of Power, and Dragon-sickness (greed, possessiveness), another Shadow-weakness, would be appropriate Flaws. 

If there's a problem with the application of concepts from TOR to HQ, is that the Shadow-weaknesses are tied to Callings, whereas it would seem more appropriate to divorce them (in fact, Callings in TOR do not bring much to a character in terms of concept.)

[Raunen]

Are there any news about the current state of the QuestWorlds SRD? Can't wait

[Ian Cooper]

On 6/29/2019 at 1:09 PM, Curwen said:

Are there any news about the current state of the QuestWorlds SRD? Can't wait

There is a document. We're just figuring out some logistical issues on it.

[Richard S.]

21 hours ago, Ian Cooper said:

There is a document. We're just figuring out some logistical issues on it.

What types of logistical issues?

[Tanaka84]

I have this wish/expectation that the SRD gets released to the wild during Gencon 2019

[Ian Cooper]

On 7/7/2019 at 7:13 PM, Richard S. said:

What types of logistical issues?

Personal issues impacting one of the team, we now have new resource on it.

[cjbowser]

I realize I'm quite late to the party, but apparently earlier than the SRD. 😉

I've been kicking around an idea that would go great with HQ, an an SRD is going to make that even easier to get into the public's hands. 

[Michael Hopcroft]

It looks like most of the genres that require specialized rules (supers, mecha, etc.) seem to be taken. So if I were to go in cold and write something for QuestWorlds, would I have to wait to do some things until I know what I would have to become compatible with? Or would I be able to go in on my own, knowing rules will contradict someone else's more popular rules set?

[cjbowser]

13 hours ago, Michael Hopcroft said:

It looks like most of the genres that require specialized rules (supers, mecha, etc.) seem to be taken. So if I were to go in cold and write something for QuestWorlds, would I have to wait to do some things until I know what I would have to become compatible with? Or would I be able to go in on my own, knowing rules will contradict someone else's more popular rules set?

I think the more important questions to ask yourself are:

1. Is Questworlds the right system for what I'm wanting to do?

2. Am I enthused/excited enough to breathe real life into this project and see it through to the end?

As is seen with other games using the OGL, you end up with good products and bad products. You sometimes end up with products that try to fill the same niche, sometimes in contradictory ways, and they're all superb products. One isn't systemically better than the other and the gaming table is better because they both exist.  They just approach the subject matter from different perspectives and GMs can then have a surfeit of options to mix and match.

It's also possible that bad products try to occupy the same niche, but let's not dwell on that.